"Fragmented Belief and Knowledge"
Abstract: Much recent work in epistemology and the philosophy of mind appeals to the idea that belief (and, presumably, knowledge) cannot be understood as a two-place relation between a subject and a proposition. Rather, additional structure is needed; belief must be indexed to "tasks" (Marley-Payne), "questions" (Yalcin), or "manifestation conditions" (Elga and Rayo). This extra structure is usually motivated either by tricky examples (e.g., Schwitzgebel's cases of "in-between belief", or Gendler's cases of "alief") or more general problematic phenomena (e.g., the problem of logical omniscience) said to afflict traditional views on which the belief relation is merely two-place. My main aim in this talk is to provide some independent, foundational motivations for the idea that belief and knowledge have this extra structure; I'll argue that on a relatively broad category of foundational views about the nature of intentionality, such extra structure is to be expected. I'll also discuss how such views can shed light on puzzles about higher-order belief and knowledge.
Daniel Greco is an Assistant Professor at Yale University.
